Duty Calls

All cliches exist for a reason, they are born from fact and then live on in daily instances of their conception. This week, after a particularly brutal succession of events at work, I found myself wearing an apron, beating eggs, and crying over the bowl of botched brownie mix when a white got mixed into the yolks. Quite the picture of a successful working mother.

But after a 13 hour work day (the extra 4 due to a volunteer position coaching mock trial I assumed from some sort of masochism complex no doubt), learning that I had been assigned brownies for the bake sale at daycare (I thought these events began in preschool?), was told I'm responsible for getting 1200 (instead of the usual 450) formal invitations in the mail for an upcoming work event, and then saw the stain of egg yolk on my DVF skirt I had failed to cover completely with said apron, I had reached my limit. The pink laundry resulting from my failure to separate my new red J Brand pants was icing on the proverbial cake. So out came the tears, down ran the Clinique black honey eyeliner, and into the sink fell the fumbled batter. Instead, I went out and spent $20 on store-bought cookies for Tucker's bake sale, as I couldn't face showing up empty handed on top of all my other motherhood failures in a 24 hour period. I would love to be an effortless homemaker, who works, cleans, bakes, and comes home from work cheery and ready to chase the crawling baby from coffee table to china cabinet. Maybe next year!